The run up to war with China
The run up to war with China
Reports from Ukraine killing fields
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. — Albert Einstein
New Russian offensive
Western media reports from the Ukrainian killing fields indicate that the proxy war between US/NATO forces and Russia in Ukraine is unwinnable. Without serious diplomatic efforts and meaningful peace talks, the war becomes an interminable one of attrition that threatens to spread its death and destruction far beyond Ukraine’s borders and engulf much of Europe and could become nuclear.
AP — In an interview with The Associated Press this month, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said his government was discussing with the Biden administration joint military planning potentially involving U.S. nuclear assets.
WARSAW, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Poland aims to get training time on Leopard 2 battle tanks down to five weeks at a center where Ukrainian soldiers are likely to be taught how to operate the Western battlefield workhorse against Russia's invasion.
The village of Swietoszow in western Poland, near the German border, hosts one of just three Leopard training centers in Europe - the others are in Germany and Switzerland.
The Polish military declined to confirm where Ukrainian soldiers would be trained, but military experts said Swietoszow was the most likely location.
Instead of desert training, Michigan National Guard troops now prep for cold-weather war with Russia, and China. — Military Times
Brits won’t send fighter jets to Ukraine
It would not be “practical” to send British fighter jets to Ukraine, Downing St said on Tuesday, just hours after Joe Biden ruled out such a deployment of USaircraft.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “The UK’s Typhoon and F-35 fighter jets are extremely sophisticated and take months to learn how to fly.
“Given that we believe that it’s not practical to send those jets into Ukraine. — Yahoo News
A major new Russian assault on the Ukrainian-held bastion of Vuhledar could make local gains but is unlikely to lead to an operational breakthrough, Britain's Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday.
Quotables
Bill Gates
"China has gone from in 1980 being incredibly impoverished, poorer than India. I mean literally, with starvation, malnutrition, to being the most wealthy middle-income country in the world, and it's 1.4 billion people," said Gates. "It’s incredible, and it’s great for the world."
"I do think the current mentality of the U.S. to China, and which is reciprocated, is kind of a lose-lose mentality," he suggested. "That if you ask U.S. politicians, ‘Hey, would you like the Chinese economy to shrink by 20% or grow by 20%?' I'm afraid they would vote that, ‘Yeah, let’s immiserate those people,' not understanding that for the global economy, the invention of cancer drugs, the solution of climate change, you know, we're all in this together."
"We're humans, we innovate together and we have to change the modern industrial economy together in a pretty dramatic fashion," Gates added. — Remarks this week at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia
Chris Hedges, writing at SheerPost
NATO military commanders understand that the infusion of these weapons systems into the war will not alter what is, at best, a stalemate, defined largely by artillery duels over hundreds of miles of front lines. The purchase of these weapons systems — one M1 Abrams tank costs $10 million when training and sustainment are included — increases the profits of the arms manufacturers. The use of these weapons in Ukraine allows them to be tested in battlefield conditions, making the war a laboratory for weapons manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin. All this is useful to NATO and to the arms industry. But it is not very useful to Ukraine.
Author Pankaj Mishra at Bloomberg
There is no evidence either that the people and governments of the Global South, who are suffering most from the economic consequences of the war, are turning decisively against Putin, or that most of the world’s population sees Russia’s assault on Ukraine as qualitatively different from the US invasion of Iraq. In India, supposedly allied to the West, a recent poll found that more respondents blamed either NATO or the US than Russia for the war in Ukraine.
Interesting to see Bill Gates in tune with President Xi. Chal up one billionaire for the positive side. I'd like to ask Hedges, who seems to know what's bad for Ukraine, what he thinks is good for them? Many in the West claim the war is a stalemate and unwinnable. But it seems Putin still thinks he can win, even if it's like the Romans and Carthage, destroying everything, plowing the land with salt, and calling it 'peace.' But who will bell the cat?